25 replies to this topic

[ca443]

I am attempting to build a quick easy wine rack. I will post pictures when I am done. The goal is to make it 30 inches wide, using ferring strips (rough 1x2s and 1x3s) for the horizontals, and 2x3's for the verticles. As for tools, I plan to use a handsaw, drill (with a philips bit, and a whole saw), and two bar clamps.

A couple of goals. Store up to 60+ bottles of wine (two 6 gallon batches), keep the rack around $20.00 or less, build it quickly, with minimal tools, and this is NOT a show piece, just storage. (I do have other tools, compound miter saw, larger hole saws, table saw, jig saw, etc, but I would like to build something that others could reproduce easily and quickly with limited supplies).

My question to the group is about proper wine storage. Should the horizontal bottle be level? For instance, many of the wine racks with the sticks store bottles horizontal, same as wire shelving (which I looked at for this but it is too expensive for this purpose). Or is it ok for the cork to be lower than the back of the bottle? So for the bottle to be stored at a 5-10 degree pitch?

Thanks,
Chris

[Howie]

I have a few old shelving units that consist of rectangular bins. One unit, made of wood is 24" high, 22" deep and 60" wide. It may have been used to store old vinyl LP records. It has 10 bins, 5 on top, 5 on bottom and each bin holds 24 bottles when stacked 2 deep, so 240 bottles. The other unit has similar sized bins, but is metal and has 16 bins, 4 down and 4 across and the unit is about 6 ft tall - so 384 bottles.

[ca443]

Thanks Howie for the reply. Sounds like you have some affordable storage as well. I guess going back to my question, yours probably store the bottles flat, is it ok to store the bottles at a 5 or 10 degree angle where the cork is facing farther downward. So basically does the bottle need to remain horizontal.

[Howie]

I don't think it matters. If you use natural corks, all that matters is that the cork stays wet.

[Hammered]

Thanks Howie for the reply. Sounds like you have some affordable storage as well. I guess going back to my question, yours probably store the bottles flat, is it ok to store the bottles at a 5 or 10 degree angle where the cork is facing farther downward. So basically does the bottle need to remain horizontal.

Yes.

[ca443]

Thanks, then onto the build.

[ca443]

OK, I have built my wine rack. I was able to build it for around 16 dollars, and it will hold 60 bottles of wine. The only tools I used were a drill and compound miter saw (I started out with a hand saw but got lazy). I used a 1.5 inch hole saw, philips bit, and had two bar clamps. In all I would say it took less then 3 hours to build. (I did not count the cost of screws in the build). As you can see due to the hole sizes the bottles tip down a bit.

[croat]

Cutting the half circles was a PITA the last one we made, next is going to be all straight boards like this.

[ca443]

I like that as well and I agree that the half circles add extra tools and time; however, I couldn't find any strips/straight boards that 1/2 by 1/2 I was thinking of using shoe molding (as the idea was to keep it as cheap as possible). I also didn't want to take a 1x3 and rip it multiple times. Think shoe moulding would work? If so I could run the math to see how cheap it could be made.

[croat]

You wont find them and if so they would be expensive.
You would need to fabricate them yourself easily with a tablesaw.

[Lina_Motyka]

Cutting the half circles was a PITA the last one we made, next is going to be all straight boards like this.

Why dont you clamp two boards together and use hole saw? Quite easy that way. You can even screw them down on piece of wood if you dont have clamps.

[ca443]

Why dont you clamp two boards together and use hole saw? Quite easy that way. You can even screw them down on piece of wood if you dont have clamps.

That is what I did, and it was pretty quick. The back circle is the same size as the front, that is why all of the bottles tip forward slightly.

[Howie]

Just had a thought - corrugated roofing fill strips would work for Bordeaux and Hock (Riesling) type bottles as the corrugations in the roofing are 3" on center, but Burgundy type bottles would be too wide: http://www.homedepot...g&storeId=10051

[Dutchm]

I used shoe molding for my last rack but it cost me a good bit more than ripping the 1x3" into strips.

[MinnesotaMaker]

Just in case you haven't seen this one yet, I have a wine rack made from pallets. "Skid Row Wine Rack" instructions are here: http://skeeterpee.com/?page_id=136
If you click on the image a couple of times, it'll enlarge making it easier to read. It's cheap, quick, and recycles.